Former Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Derek Carr recently went into detail about the reason behind his retiring from the NFL and New Orleans Saints.
Carr’s retirement at the age of 34 pretty much came out of nowhere. After injuring his shoulder during the offseason, Carr was faced with having surgery on it that could’ve knocked him out of the entire 2025 campaign.
Instead of going through that, Carr decided to hang up his cleats, and his reason for doing so is admirable, to say the least.
Carr told David Rumsey of Front Office Sports that it came down to him not wanting to take the Saints’ money while sitting out.
“That part was tough because I didn’t want to have surgery and just sit there and — it sounds crazy but — just take the Saints money,” Carr said to Rumsey.
“I wouldn’t have been able to play if I had the surgery,” Carr added. “And then if I tried to play with it, I wasn’t near 100%, and so that doesn’t help them, either. I just felt like it was the right thing to do for myself and for the team.”
Likely making that decision a lot easier was the fact that Carr made a ton of money over the course of his career, both from the Raiders and Saints.
However, Carr says it was never just about the money for him.
“I never played just for the money,” Carr explained. “I had a whole bunch of people tell me how crazy I was, and ‘Man, I would never have done that.’ That’s all cool, but I’ve gained all these things that the world has to offer, and it doesn’t really do anything for your heart. I knew my heart was at peace, and that’s really all that mattered.”
It’s hard to take comments like this at face value from most people in professional sports, but what we know about Carr’s character, along with the fact that he passed on collecting money while sitting out, adds legitimacy to what he’s saying.
Despite his recent decision, Carr says his agent has checked in on him to make sure he’s really done in the NFL. The former Raiders signal-caller made it quite clear he’s perfectly content with his decision.
“My agent literally texted me a few days ago and he said, ‘Hey, just checking it in. How’s everything? You still feel comfortable with the decision?’ And I sent him a picture of me on the beach with my two kids playing,” Carr revealed. “And I said, ‘This beats an OTA any day.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I thought so,’ So, I’m doing great and have thoroughly enjoyed being home.”
We’ll see if anything changes down the road, but for now we wouldn’t expect Carr to go back on his decision to retire.
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